Kurdish Dreams of Independence Delayed Again

An Iraqi-forces member took down Kurdish flags during an operation against Kurdish fighters on Monday. Iraqi forces’ push into the territory is the latest turn in a tumultuous period in the region.

Photograph by Ahmad Al-Rubaye / AFP / Getty

On Sunday, Qassem Suleimani, Iran’s chief spymaster, travelled to the Iraqi city of Sulaimaniya to meet with the leaders of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or P.U.K., one of the two main Kurdish political parties. For years, the P.U.K. and its sister party, the Kurdish Democratic Party, or K.D.P., have been struggling to break away from the rest of Iraq and form an independent state. A Kurdish republic is opposed by all the region’s countries—the governments in Baghdad, Turkey, and Iran—which fear that sizable Kurdish minorities in all three nations will begin to act autonomously. Only weeks ago, in a region-wide referendum, Iraq’s Kurds voted overwhelmingly to secede. The Kurdish dream, it seemed, was tantalizingly within reach.

It is not known what Suleimani—the Middle East’s most cunning operative—told the P.U.K.’s leaders. But, within hours, their fighters began abandoning their posts, making way for Iraqi military units just across the front lines. Not long after, Iraqi forces took over the former Kurdish positions and a stretch of oil fields near the city of Kirkuk. With the Iraqi Kurds now split in two—the P.U.K. on one side and the K.D.P. on the other—hopes for an independent Kurdish state appear to be fading fast. “It was a horrible, horrible betrayal,” a senior official in the Kurdish Regional Government told me.

On the P.U.K. side, the deal was struck by the survivors of Jalal Talabani, the group’s longtime chief and a former Iraqi President, who died earlier this month: his widow, Hero; his son Bafil; and his nephew Lahur. It’s not clear what was included in the deal, but the speculation is that Suleimani offered a mix of threats and inducements, including money and access to oil-smuggling routes. “Everyone is calling it the P.U.K. drug deal,” a former senior American official who works in the region told me. Notably, many P.U.K. units refused the order to stand down and fought the oncoming Iraqi units.

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The deal struck by Suleimani, and the push by Iraqi forces into the Kurdish territory, is the latest turn in a tumultuous period in the region. It started in the summer of 2014, when the Islamic State swept out of the Syrian desert and captured a huge swath of northern and western Iraq, rolling over the Iraqi Army in the process. When ISIS fighters reached the outskirts of the Kurdish region, they were beaten back by the Kurdistan regional army known as the peshmerga—in the Kurdish language, “those who face death.”

The peshmerga became the most effective fighters against ISIS, often earning the praise of American commanders. The military campaign against ISIS galvanized the Kurds’ determination to go forward with their plans for independence. Linguistically and culturally apart from the rest of Iraq, the Kurds have long suffered at the hands of governments in Baghdad, especially under Saddam Hussein, who killed hundreds of thousands of them. The discovery of vast oil deposits in the Kurdish region after Saddam’s fall seemed to give them the means to break free. With ISIS in its death throes, the time seemed right. On September 25th, Masoud Barzani, the President of the Kurdish region, presided over a referendum on the question of independence. Every government in the region, as well as the Trump Administration, called on Barzani to cancel the vote, but he refused. When more than ninety per cent of Kurds voted in favor of independence, those same governments lined up to isolate the Kurds.

Last week, Iraqi military units began massing near the Kurdish-Iraqi border. The Iraqi units are dominated by “popular mobilization forces,” which is another way of saying Iranian-trained militias that operate inside Iraq. Those militias—controlled by Suleimani—are staunch backers of the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, in Baghdad. Most of these groups have dark pasts; the main militia that moved into Kurdish territory this morning was Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, which battled American soldiers in Iraq during the war there. Its leader, Qais Khazali, is believed to be the principal planner of the kidnapping and execution of four American soldiers in Karbala in 2007. The military operation in the Kurdish region is very much a joint Iraq-Iran project; the flag of Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq was planted at one of the Kurdish bases that was taken over. Also accompanying Iraqi forces in Kirkuk was Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, an Iraqi militia commander convicted of bombing the American Embassy in Kuwait in 1983; he has been designated a terrorist by the United States government.

The Trump Administration appears content to stand on the sidelines. The State Department signalled on Tuesday that it was not opposed to the Iraqi military’s intervention, saying that it supported the “joint administration” of Kirkuk. Last week, an American official whom I spoke with told me that he had no knowledge of any military preparations on the Kurdish-Iraqi border, even as they were ongoing. In this way, the Trump White House is maintaining the policy of President Obama, which was opposed to the formation of a Kurdish state, on the grounds that it would further destabilize the region. Ironically, though, the Trump White House just last week unveiled a new strategy for confronting Iran, whose gains it has promised to “roll back.” But, whatever else the military incursion into the Kurdish region is, it’s a victory for Suleimani and Iran. The Iranian-led militias that rolled into Kurdish territory on Monday were driving American-made Humvees and M1 tanks.

Since the end of the First World War, the Kurdish people have been divided among Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey—all of which are united in their efforts to prevent them from forming their own state. Landlocked and surrounded by enemies, the Kurds have waged a long, hard, and bloody struggle. The K.D.P.—the Kurdish party that refused to yield to the Iraqis and Iranians—may yet mount a counterattack. Still, even if it does, one thing is clear: the fight for an independent Kurdish state will be much more difficult.

On Sunday, Qassem Suleimani, Iran’s chief spymaster, travelled to the Iraqi city of Sulaimaniya to meet with the leaders of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or P.U.K., one of the two main Kurdish political parties. For years, the P.U.K. and its sister party, the Kurdish Democratic Party, or K.D.P., have been struggling to break away from the rest of Iraq and form an independent state. A Kurdish republic is opposed by all the region’s countries—the governments in Baghdad, Turkey, and Iran—which fear that sizable Kurdish minorities in all three nations will begin to act autonomously. Only weeks ago, in a region-wide referendum, Iraq’s Kurds voted overwhelmingly to secede. The Kurdish dream, it seemed, was tantalizingly within reach.